I wanted to tell you this morning
that each time I write a poem
with you in it,
each time you have shared
what was in my heart,
in my mind,
you are more present
in the landscape of my being,
in the circuit of my thoughts
When you receive my poems
you have received a gift of me
so that I hold you
in gratitude, in inner company —
I keep the thought of you
as treasure,
more for every time
that, through my poetry,
I feel I have been seen.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2015
If you are lost,
if in your story
you are missing
pieces of yourself —
perhaps your peace,
perhaps your groundedness —
if in your story
you are waiting to be saved
Look now, for in this very afternoon
where breezes chase each other
through grasses and daisies,
The ground holds everything.
It holds you as well,
infusing your feet
with all the power you need,
spreading the strength
of the whole earth
into the heart of your presence.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2015
Small insects are allowed
as is the busy hum
they make as a collective
Sparrow songs are welcome
as is the breeze, and the smell
of fresh scythed grass
The afternoon had a pause in it
which I only notice
now that the birdsong has resumed,
now that the sifting sun
has softened
and granted golden robes
to green undergrowth
so it glows royal
in the swift procession
towards sunset.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 18, 2015
I need the blessing
for those that mourn.
I mourn for something nameless
that cries in you
but won’t explain itself
I mourn for the chasm,
for the absent bridge,
I mourn for anything
I might have done or failed to do
to close the gap or span it,
I mourn the self-fulfillment
of a persistent dread
This healing is not
something I can do by sleight of thought.
This healing requires something ancient, timeless‚
the truth about you and me
that existed
before the world was framed,
the love that asserts itself,
flooding out the lie of pain.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2015
Picking raspberries, I consider
that writing poems is just like this sometimes —
There’s sight involved, but picking
comes down to touch most often —
a gentle grasp that doesn’t bruise the berries,
just firm enough to pull them off,
and knowing to desist if they resist too much,
to wait another day until they ripen
I stoop down to peer beneath the leaves
and spot the hanging red,
then my hand goes in almost blind
to feel if it is ready and to pick it if it is.
Some berries fall apart in my hand,
some years, some are mushy
(but not this crop)
We’ll tend them well to keep them plump
With poems I do the same thing,
with the initial spark, with words,
with images —
I move focused along the canes
and fill my basket.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2015
Things can spring apart,
blocks burst loose and tumble —
there can be rubble,
and all the places
things used to fit
can be obliterated
You can have a sense of
no order, no place
to put anything, no place
to sit down even,
no rest for the insistent
and erratic
loopings of your mind
You can call it
a waste howling wilderness,
and that may be a clue
For everything that matters to you
is held where nothing that can fall apart
will touch it.
Its inviolability is proof
of what’s real,
its presence
what will lead you
all the way out of the fray
and on to sweet abiding peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 14, 2015
I will see you,
I will see your hopes and your desires
I will see your fears
and what will assuage them
I will see your secret boxes
and the treasure glowing through
their breathing walls
They will become transparent —
I will see what’s growing in them
and how, through whatever
old protective thicket,
they find their way out.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2015
You scoff at the stories
of how people found God —
I love you and the aliveness
behind your stance, the unwillingness
to be sold salvation by anyone,
to swallow stories
that set things neatly up —
castles made of blocks —
and plant the faithful conveniently
at the top
Some people may be called to faith
as if it were a club, and some, as if it were
network marketing.
You will never believe
what someone else tells you —
The voice inside,
deeper in than where suggestions can be planted,
whispers what you are:
You’ll follow that.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2015
This color of green —
light on leaves, light through leaves,
invokes a happiness
that shows my empathy
Like other living things
they are most beautiful
when they are receiving
that which feeds them,
when they are giving
that for which they were made,
when they are being
what they are designed to be —
drinkers of light,
bringers of sweet energy.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2015
The sky is waiting
for the dawn of you —
your full orb to follow
these beams which already
have lighted and thrilled it
We are waiting
for our fingers
to meet your outstretched hands,
for the sweet interlock
through which will course
unbounded joy
There’s no hurry about it:
What we see already of you
is enough for now —
the bright anticipation
kindles us, in this moment’s reception
of all that glows glorious
as your heart rises.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2015